


one little key just unpicked the lock

by heybernia



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, a tldr primer thing is included with a few links if you wanna care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 03:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15134609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heybernia/pseuds/heybernia
Summary: Carter's soul mark appears, a single orange line that even to Carter can be hard to see sometimes.Carter's soulmate doesn't appear and Carter doesn't go out of his way to look for them. Doesn't need to considering how they keep on brushing past each other.





	one little key just unpicked the lock

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [rawrimmapanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rawrimmapanda/pseuds/rawrimmapanda) in the [PuckingRare2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PuckingRare2018) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  A and B are soulmates who have matching soulmarks that don't show up until they touch for the first time.
> 
> tl:dr about them, number one hockey boy carter hart is being heralded as the goalie savior the flyers need while the flyers are also putting their dman hopes on phil myers' beautiful, wide shoulders. phil was signed as a free agent in 2015, carter was drafted in 2016, they played together at wjc17 for team canada and at least at this year's dev camp they were constantly mentioned together as the future, hart and myers. they also [looked](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgkYkR3VQAE9kWr.jpg) at each other, [touched](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg4e3RFWkAAOD46.jpg) each other and took a nice snapchat dog filter [selfie](https://78.media.tumblr.com/84da61456ab000a56832c85f39c5c115/tumblr_osy9cdwrbM1qgw93ro1_1280.png) together. there was also [wjc cellys](http://dmytrotimashovs.tumblr.com/post/154738196302/tendy-love-191216) and last year's shit the beach which [yeah.](http://phillymyers.tumblr.com/post/163038702388/baywatch)
> 
> title from cos love by tom rosenthal 
> 
> thanks to aimee for talking to me about this pairing months ago and to ash for leaving comments on the doc ily both!!! 
> 
> for c.

The first time Carter arrives in Philadelphia for development camp, the sun is setting and turning the sky all across the horizon line a familiar shade of orange.

At least it’s fitting, he supposes. He wonders if the sky is like this all throughout the year or if it’s just during breezy July nights.

Carter’s not sure how long it will take him to find out for himself but he’s willing to wait for it. It doesn’t matter if his name is up in lights by then, that’s something that doesn’t really matter at all.

*

Connor Ingram is the first person who Carter warms to at Team Canada’s summer showcase.

Which on one hand is because he’s a goalie and there’s always just this intrinsic understanding between goalies that’s forged through 180 or so feet stares from one end of the rink to the other.

On the other hand, him and Connor probably bonded more over their mostly mild mutual hatred of Mathew Barzal than anything else. Carter definitely understands why Connor threw his blocker at him, Carter may have felt a similar thing once or twice although watching Barzal get wiped out against the glass right next to his crease always helps qualm that urge.

Carter mostly spends time with him and McNiven who’s the other goalie and who is rooming with someone else, Connor shook his head at the lack of a bunk bed option from the hotel and talked about how, “no wonder it’s only 3.9 on TripAdvisor.” It made Carter laugh which happens a lot around Connor, he manages to make everyone laugh.

It’s not like Carter doesn’t hangout with the rest of his teammates, it’s not like when he first got to Everett where he had to be encouraged to interact with his teammates. He chills with the boys from the Dub and says hi and listens to the boys from the O and the Q.

Carter just prefers being by himself, enjoys when he can focus on his breathing and sorting through his thoughts. It always makes things easier.

 

It’s only when Carter returns home does he notice the line under his collarbone right on the point where his shoulder and arm meet.

He tries to scrub it away with no success. That makes it easier to see in the mirror though once he’s wiped off the steam, the pale orange standing out against the angry red.

Carter frowns. Presses his thumb down on it, hard, but that only makes the red around it disappear, not the line itself. It doesn’t feel any different to his skin either.

There’s no gossip or buzz about someone else’s soul mark appearing in the group chat that was set up or that Carter can remember hearing.

It was probably from when the coaches made everyone go around and shake everyone else’s hand to make sure they were all introduce. Only slightly less awkward than any class ice breakers.

Carter can’t remember feeling anything different with any of them. He can only remember Noah pulling a face at him, Barzal holding his hand too tight, for way too long and Connor asking him what team he played for now.

There was one more that sticks out in Carter’s head. Shaking Phil Myers' hand stands out from the rest for some reason, Phil Myers and his face that was mostly cheekbones and his big hands and his oddly soft voice when he said hi back, but that’s because he’s a Flyer prospect as well. He just wasn’t at development camp for the same reason he’s not on the ice here with the whole still recovering from surgery.

He should probably more excited that he’s met his soulmate already, maybe even more worried that there’s the chance he might have missed them. There’s just not much point in thinking about it like that to Carter, or really thinking about it all at the moment.

If they’re meant to be soulmates, they’ll find each other again. They’ll brush past each other again and the lines will become more than that.

*

Touch your soulmate and make their mark appear, that’s basically how it works.

Touch your soulmate and their mark may appear instantly like it’s been stamped, or it might start fill in like one of those time-lapse videos you see on social media.

Touch your soulmate and their mark may start to appear but then stop, you might have to keep on touching them for it to keep on going.

You have to touch your soulmate to know it’s them for sure and Carter can’t say that’s something he wants to do now, maybe ever. He wants to focus on himself and on what steps he has to take. His soulmate can wait for a little while.

*

The first person who congratulates Carter in person when he makes it to Team Canada is Connor because they're roommates again. Connor gives Carter a quick hug, Carter pats his back a few times in return. Hugs are better when they are pads in the way and a victory to celebrate in Carter's opinion.

It felt like it hasn’t been three months since the last time they were roommates, they’ve picked up where they left off before, Connor commentating on everything and Carter returning sometimes.

Connor is probably going to end up calling every single house in Imperial himself to save his family doing it so Carter ducks out to talk to his own.

The only other person in the hallway is Phil, talking to someone in French on the phone with a huge smile on his face. He’s playing with one of the strings of his red hoodie, and then he looks up and over to Carter and his smile grows even bigger.

Phil does this thing with eyes and Carter nods in return. Phil mouths something at him, congrats Carter thinks, Phil’s smile made it a little hard to tell, and goes back to talking on the phone.

Carter’s smiling before he even unlocks his phone.

 

The coaches make them do the shake everyone’s hand deal again after the captaincy team meeting.

Carter gets another good look at Phil who still looks the same as he did last time Carter was this close, same sharp cheekbones and long on top, short on the sides hair style. He still has that gentle voice too that surprises Carter every time.

Sometimes, his eyes might draft over to Phil. It’s never for long, just long enough to notice him biting his lip, and running his hand through his hair, and fidgeting with something next to him, and then they’re back to where they’re meant to be.

For example, they should be on Carter’s food right now, but instead they’re looking for Phil who isn’t next to Lauz which is weird, dmen come in pairs and huskies come in packs so it makes sense that they’re always together.

Carter turns back to his food just as someone drops a glass--his glass of chocolate milk in front of him. Carter whips his head around and finds Phil looking down at him, holding his plate in one hand.

“You left your glass beside the food,” Phil says.

“Oh, thanks,” Carter says, cheeks heating up.

“No problem,” Phil says, and then he goes to sit in his seat next to Lauz and Carter stares at his glass.

No one has said anything about him having the same breakfast every day or his routine to him or to someone who would tell him so that’s been nice.

“I support your superstitions. Keep doing whatever makes you comfortable and happy, Hartsy, as long as your stomach can handle all of the chocolate milk,” Connor had said during one of their first times at team breakfast and Carter resisted the urge to correct him.

Carter doesn’t have superstitions, he has a routine, and the difference is that Carter can change his routines whenever he wants. He could have started having potatoes instead of rice with his chicken at any time he wanted, he doesn’t have to wait to be the last person off the ice, and Carter can stop covering up the orange line on his shoulder whenever instead of waiting for the appeal of covering it to fade away.

He takes a longer look at his soul mark, more like soul line, than he normally does one morning while Connor is still asleep. Even thought Carter knows exactly where it is, it can take him a few moments to find it because of how thin the line is and how it blends in with his skin.

It’s still the same shade of orange, still more horizontal than it is vertical. No surprise there.

The surprise comes in the form of the line not just being a straight line anymore. It's grown longer, Carter is sure, and then one end has started to curve round forming a hook shape.

 

So, Carter shook the hand of his soulmate at the summer showcase, and then he's shook their hand recently. That certainly narrows the field down.

Carter will get around to doing something about it once the tournament is finished. Hockey comes first now, they're going to get one shot at World Juniors and that's it while with his soulmate, Carter's already been proven about the whole coming back together thing so it's likely going to happen again. Carter believes so at least.

Going after his soulmate probably would have made Carter happier in the long run however.

First, Phil gets hurt. He has to be helped off the ice, legs wobbly in his skates unlike Carter has ever since before.

Then they don’t even avenge him or defend Canada because they lose to the United States.

They make it to the final and then they lose in the final to the United States again. Lose in the shootout because Carter couldn’t keep out Terry’s shot.

Carter collapses in his crease, numb, breathless. Connor skated over to him immediately from the bench, tapped his head and his shoulder and said things to Carter that he couldn't process then.

They all come up to him at some point whether it's on the ice or in the locker room and they all say some variation of the same thing, about how Carter stood on his head, kept them in the game, about how they wouldn’t have made it to the shootout without him.

Carter flies back to Everett and thinks only about playing hockey in the green and white and doesn't think about the red or black or the orange of his soulmate at all.

*

This isn’t the first time Carter arrives in Philadelphia, it’s the second now, and this time, he’s greeted by a midday sky that isn’t orange, it’s in fact as blue as can be.

Carter feels more prepared for dev camp this time around. It hasn't been an easy year at all, the clean sweep by Barzal and the Thunderbirds to end Everett's season is a fresh sting to go along with the now old wounds from World Junior, though Carter has now come out of the other side of it all, he survived and he's more prepared than ever for what teams and the world are going to throw at him.

They're holding a barbecue for the prospects to get them introduced. Carter likes that better than shaking hands, can't complain about there being plenty of food being ready to eat.

Carter doesn't have a chance to fill up his plate though because he gets handed the social media phone and gets politely told to take a snapchat selfie by himself or with someone else.

He was going to just take one by himself, choice made by his stomach, but then he spots a familiar figure and well, Carter isn't going to say no to an excuse to reintroduce himself to them.

It's definitely Phil even if Carter can't see his face. From this angle, Phil stills looks-- he looks. He looks good, like real good, like everything about him has been turned up until it broke the switch. That tight t-shirt and gold chain sitting high on his neck are made to distract.

He wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what it is about Phil that makes him attractive to Carter. It's probably something to do with that much warmth packed into that handsome of a face, and yet still having a gentle, mellow voice and droopy curls. Probably, if Carter had to guess.

Phil's in the middle of chewing something, but his eyebrows fly up and his eyes go wide when he sees Carter standing a few feet away. He swallows, Carter does not watch the movement of his neck, and says, "Hi, Carter. You good?"

"Hey," Carter says. "Yeah, I need your help with something--please."

Phil blinks once, licks the sauce off the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, what is it?"

"Snapchat selfie for the Flyers snapchat." Carter brandishes the phone.

Phil blinks a couple more times. "I can do that, sure," he says, smiling lopsided.

“Cool, what filter do you want?” Carter asks. “I don’t mind.

“The dog one,” Phil says. He puts his plate on the table and wipes at his mouth. “It’s the classic.”

Carter also thinks it’s probably Phil’s favourite considering how it’s the only snapchat filter Carter has ever seen him use but Carter likes it too so it’s more than fine with him.

"Smiles or no smiles," Carter says, fucking about with the phone until the both of them are fitting in the frame.

"No smiles," Phil says, leaning a little into Carter's half of the screen.

"Fine for you," Carter says. He still gives it a little smile while Phil is more blue steel-ish. Phil still immediately breaks into giggles when he sees the result though, and, safe to say, it's cute. 

"Nice, next time, we'll bring out the tongues," Carter says. He makes to include Phil's @ in the caption as a thanks.

"Next time, yeah," Phil laughs.

 

Carter can’t say he exactly knows Nolan that well. In fact, he can only really say that he knows him from the Ivan Hlinka where their paths only really crossed in the, "can you pass over my water bottle please thanks," sort of way and from Nolan driving to Carter’s net during games against Brandon.

He knows Nolan well enough though to be aware that he didn’t have that soul mark last time they met.

He's trying not to stare at it, but Nolan keeps on standing in front of him and it's right there on one of the tendons in his neck, some kind of red cross thing staring Carter right in the eye.

Even Carter has overheard a few whispers about it, about who it could belong to, but Carter hasn't really been too bothered to listen to them and he's only thinking about it because it's right in front of him. Carter doesn't look to try and find other people's. Some do have one, some don't. Some cover, some don't.

Phil doesn't have one Carter can remember seeing, for example. That doesn't stop Carter from looking at him in case he does though.

 

Trial at the Isle isn't Carter's favourite part of the development camp, that's always going to be the on-ice workouts, but he thinks he's enjoying this year's more than last's. He’s in the same group as Nolan, as Morgan Frost and Matthew Strome, and as Phil too. Phil, who's shirtless and wet, spends a lot of time next to Carter, talking sometimes and laughing others. Even if it's not a relaxing day at the beach, Carter still had fun at certain points.

There is still sand between Carter's toes and under his nails while they stand on the grass waiting to play Zorb football.

He's picking the sand out from under his fingernails and flicking it away when he gets a nudge in the foot. "Hey," Phil says. "Don't flick sand at me."

"You're in the way of the wind, Phil, nothing I can do about it," Carter says, focusing on his ring finger. 

Phil laughs which is something Carter is never going to get tired of hearing of. "How did you even get that much sand under there anyway?"

"I don't know," Carter says, annoyed at this bit he can't get out.. "It was probably the press ups or the burpees. I'm blaming the burpees."

"Fair," Phil says, now looking at his own nails, searching for grains of sand. There's no soul mark on Phil that Carter can stare at, there's just every inch of Phil for that. Carter takes a step forward so he's closer to Phil but he probably should have paid attention to where his foot was going because his toes end up on top of Phil’s, overlapping.

Phil’s cheeks are red when Carter looks up, and he’s chewing his lip, and Carter watches him intently, keeps his toes exactly where they are as Phil blushes more, it traveling down his neck.

Carter tells Phil about the episode of Supernatural he watched last night and thinks about what exactly this means and what he could do with it.

 

Carter’s not sure who’s looking more forward to his shower, his sand covered skin, his weary muscles or his exhausted now that’s everything’s over bones.

He takes off his soul mark bandage before he gets into the shower, lets the skin there breath. He's drying his hair with the towel when he glances up into the mirror and catches a glance of it.

It’s not just a funny shaped line anymore. It’s a proper, connected shape that’s half-filled in. It even has a hole in the once hook, now circle part at the top.

So, Carter's soulmate was at the summer showcase last year, was at WJC, and is now at the Flyers development camp. So, logically, there’s only one person who can be Carter’s soulmate.

“Oh, hey Carter,” Phil says when he answers the door, dressed in a bright orange Flyers branded tank top and shorts.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Carter says, cutting straight to it.

“What is it?” Phil asks.

Carter scratches at his shoulder, his shirt a little damp. “Can we do this inside?”

“Sure,” Phil says, understanding, and he moves aside to let Carter in, shutting down the door gently behind him. His roommate must be away because there's no one else in the room. “What do you need?” Phil asks.

“To show you something.” Phil's eyebrows raise up at that. He folds his arms, shows off his forearms, and waits for Carter to show him.

There's no point messing about so Carter takes off his shirt and turns so the light from the window is hitting off his skin and catching the orange of his soul mark. Phil unfolds his arms and comes closer.

"That's your soul mark," Phil says though Carter can't blame him for stating the obvious.

Carter nods. “It’s yours, actually," Carter says.

“Oh,” Phil says, small and shocked.

"Is that okay?" Carter asks, letting his heart rest in Phil's hands.

"Yes," Phil says, quietly. "Yes, Carter, it is, yeah."

Carter's heart is now doing leaps in the air. "Great, I can’t really tell what it is though," Carter says just for something to say.

Phil looks at it all focused. “I think it’s a P." Carter tries to get his head at the right sort of angle to see that and well, Phil could be right, it does look like that.

"I have something to show you too," Phil says, not giving Carter any time to answer before he's taking his top off and turning around so it's mostly Phil's back and side that are facing Carter. He lifts the arm on that side up and points to a specific place on his side, right on his ribs and where it would be hidden by his arm most of the time. There's a U shape in the same shade of orange as Carter's across Phil's side, it's half-filled in from the back but it still isn't that visible on Phil's skin.

"So, this is a C," Phil says.

“Oh, cool,” Carter says.

"It's hard for me to see it," Phil says, neck red. "I didn't think to look until now."

"That's okay," Carter says. "We still figured it out and it's good. I wasn't that big about soulmates, but you're the type of person I'd have always wanted as my soulmate," Carter admits. Phil's good throughout every layer right down to his core and Carter has been thinking over the past few days about how he wants to go through each one piece by piece.

Phil smiles, eyes crinkling, brings his arm down and Carter is left wondering where exactly that dimple come from and how did he not notice it before.

"Same," Phil says. Phil lightly touches the tips of Carter's fingers with his own, and they both watch as a few extra lines of colour are added to Carter's soul mark.

"We could fill the rest of it up now if you want," Phil suggests.

Carter looks into Phil's eyes and sees goodness and a sweetness that Carter wants find everything about.

"Well, we've both got our shirts off so why not," Carter says.

Phil's smile taste as good as it looks.

They take the whole kissing business slow, hands too busy pressing into their soul marks to do anything else.

*

The first person Carter messages when he wakes up is Phil. Phil’s contact in Carter’s phone is always at the top and his name is always Phil with a capital P.

It matches with Carter’s name in Phil’s phone, Carter with a capital C, and that’s the most important part of it, it's the most of everything, the fact they match and will always be matching.

**Author's Note:**

> untagged mentions : connor ingram, jeremy lauzon, nolan patrick
> 
> [their toes overlapping is a real thing](https://78.media.tumblr.com/cb9921c2fb18725638722530860b4c4c/tumblr_p1w7tzA5Ht1s7uys3o1_250.jpg) and you can't take it away from me.  
> and so is connor ingram throwing his blocker at mat barzal during a whl game #he'stheonlyguyi'veeverthrownmyblockerat  
> carter was watching supernatural at the 2017 dev camp he outed himself as doing it 
> 
> i'm on twitter [@attababehisch](http://twitter.com/attababehisch) where i like to pretend i'm not attached to the flyers one bit come chill <3


End file.
